By Raphael Satter and Lefteris Papadimas
WASHINGTON/ATHENS, July 26 (Reuters) – The Iran war broadened over the weekend despite a pause in U.S. strikes, as Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis attacked Saudi oil installations along the Red Sea coast and Iran accused Ukraine of targeting one of its vessels in the Caspian Sea.
The U.S. military said on Saturday its naval blockade against Iran “remains in full effect” but did not explain why it halted a streak of 13 nights of escalating strikes.
There were also no weekend reports of attacks by Iran on neighbors, similar to its daily rejoinders to the U.S. attacks.
Asked about the pause, a senior official in President Donald Trump’s administration said Trump “has always been clear that his preference is diplomacy, but he has shown Iran what will happen if they fail to come to the table in a serious way.”
Trump has decided, for now, to back away from plans to ramp up attacks on Iran, the New York Times said on Saturday, citing two people briefed on the discussion.
The president and his advisers, the newspaper said, have concerns about expanding the conflict, depleting defense stockpiles, alienating Middle East Gulf allies and affecting energy supplies and the global economy.
Vice President JD Vance and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both raised concerns about the U.S. munitions stockpile with Trump during a White House meeting on Friday, a U.S. official told CNN.
Operations are “on a hold,” a Department of Defense source told the broadcaster on Saturday.
Despite the Gulf lull, Saturday’s fighting between Iran’s Houthi allies and Saudi Arabia showed that the war, which has already disrupted energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, could affect a second major shipping route and reignite Yemen’s civil war.
Separately, Iran’s Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of attacking an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, saying one sailor was killed and another injured.
The ministry summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran to protest over an attack it described as “hostile and criminal”, state news agency IRNA said.
The Iranian denunciation coincided with comments by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Kyiv had noted Russia was passing on to Iran its satellite observations in the Middle East, to enable it to direct strikes in the region.
WAR THREATENS TO SPREAD TO YEMEN
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group struck sites belonging to Saudi state oil company Aramco in the cities of Jizan and Yanbu on Saturday.
A large column of smoke rose from the direction of the Aramco refinery in Jizan, near the Yemeni border, video on social media verified by Reuters showed. The refinery can process up to 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily.
Two Asia-based trading sources said they had been informed of potential damage to fuel and oil storage sites at Jizan. Aramco did not respond to requests for comment.
In Yanbu, two missiles aimed at oil installations were intercepted. Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s main Red Sea oil port, has become a key route for Saudi oil skirting the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has blockaded.
SAUDI-LED COALITION STRIKES HODEIDAH
In Yemen, officials said the air force of the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government, which has opposed the Houthis for more than a decade, struck Houthi sites in the Marib and al-Jawf provinces.
The officials said both sides in Yemen’s civil war were mobilising forces along the front.
Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition battling the Houthis since the Iran-aligned fighters captured Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.
The civil war, in which famine and fighting killed hundreds of thousands, has been paused by a ceasefire since 2022.
But that truce broke down this month, with the Houthis effectively joining the wider war their Iranian allies have waged since being attacked by the United States and Israel five months ago.
The Houthis have declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia over the past week, and Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said all Saudi oil facilities could be targets.
(Reporting by Raphael Satter in Washington and Lefteris Papadimas in Athens; Writing by Raphael Satter and Kim Coghill; Editing by Rod Nickel, Matthew Lewis and Clarence Fernandez)
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